proposal for updates in next major HP release

[Don Stewart]

dave:
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Duncan
> Coutts<duncan.coutts at worc.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> > We suggest updating each package to its latest stable release, except
> > where noted below. In most cases this means relatively insignificant API
> > changes. The cases of particular interest are:
> 
> >        QuickCheck update from version 1.2.x to version 2.x
> 
> There is a lot of material on the web explaining the design of
> QuickCheck 1, how to use it, how to get started, and so forth. I
> haven't seen any documentation of QC 2 beyond the Haddock pages, which
> don't seem very helpful for new users.
> 
> For example, for shrink it says: "Produces a (possibly) empty list of
> all the possible immediate shrinks of the given value." So far as I
> can tell, the concept of a "shrink" is not actually explained
> anywhere, leaving the user to look at the existing instances and guess
> what's appropriate. (Also, if I may nit-pick, either "empty" should be
> in the parentheses with "possibly", or there shouldn't be
> parentheses.)
> 
> It would be nice if the packages in the Haskell Platform met some
> minimum standards for documentation.

Shrinking is explained in the original QC papers -- it is a killer
feature that we somehow lived without.

That said, we need an analysis of the missing pieces for our existing
libraries to meet standard.